Yeah, I’ve sort of deliberately not posted anything on my Hatsan pellet gun situation.

As you probably know, I returned two of these guns for problems and finally received a third that I thought was working properly. I was working on sighting it in and was making progress.

Here’s the deal. I have shot and retrieved several pellets and it is clear that the pellets are rifling properly and are tracking properly once they are in the air. That means they should be accurate once they leave the barrel.

The problem is “leaving the barrel.” The recoil on this gun is so violent that it blows my mind. It literally broke a cast iron retaining bolt that was holding the scope in place. It shook loose the bracket that holds the sling on, and I lost the pin that holds the bracket to the stock (it fell between the boards on my deck when it came apart).

The worst thing though is that I screwed up. Just as I was feeling like I was figuring out how to hold the gun for repeatably accurate shooting, I went to cock it and the barrel slipped out of my hand, whipping back up so violently that it appears to have bent either the barrel or the joint holding the barrel slightly.

You can’t see it visually, or maybe you can just barely see that it is angled a bit up, but it is enough that I can no longer get the scope to sight in on the new trajectory of the pellet. So I’ve been trying a variety of ways to shim up the front of the scope so that it can sight in the new pellet location.

I don’t feel comfortable returning the gun now since I was the one who messed it up.

Also, the reason the gun has such problems with recoil is because of its power. It is still the most powerful break barrel gun out there, and if I can ever get the sighting thing worked out, I think it still will be an awesome gun.

Just to give you an idea, the best results I’ve had with repeatable shooting so far has been to hold the gun so lightly that it is almost floating in my hands. I lay it at its balance point in front of the trigger on my left palm, and I very lightly rest it against my shoulder, just enough to keep it from shaking, and then I put the ball of my thumb directly behind the trigger. Then I pull the trigger as straight back as I possibly can.

When I feel I have accomplished this successfully, I get pretty nice groups. But it is very, very hard to do this. I find that even when I try very hard to hold it this way, I still have a tendency to pull the gun slightly to the right and up when I pull the trigger. Because the gun is essentially floating, the slightest pull off-line will move the barrel, messing up the shot.

The experts seem to feel this sort of hold requires thousands of shots to truly master. It’s that hard. But the results should be to have a very accurate gun with awesome power.

Anyway, that’s where I am. This weekend I hope to get some time to figure out how to shim up the scope so that it sights in again and I will practice again with the “artillery hold”. I think the gun is accurate, it just has to be held right.